Electric-Deregulation Machine Starts to Pick Up More
Steam

By

Benjamin A. Holden Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated July 14, 1997 12:27 a.m. ET

The trickle of states moving toward deregulation of their electric utilities is turning into a flood.

As of last November, only New Hampshire, Rhode Island and California had passed laws to break up the monopolies that sell power in their respective states. Since then, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Montana, Maine and Nevada have followed, with perhaps a dozen other states on their heels. New Jersey utilities are set to announce their plans Monday, and Public Service Enterprise Group, Newark, is expected to file an aggressive...